Spirited Away review: a 'transfixingly beautiful' Studio Ghibli adaptation

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001), about a ten-year-old girl's quest to find her way home from a parallel spirit world, is one of the greatest animated films ever made, said Louis Chilton in The Independent.

An "idiosyncratic" and singular piece of art, it does not cry out for a stage adaptation. But if there must be one, "it's impossible to imagine a better one than this". Adapted and directed by John Caird, the production, performed in Japanese with English surtitles, sees Miyazaki's human and paranormal characters wondrously transformed into flesh and puppetry. First staged in Japan in 2022, it boasts visual flair, great scenic innovation, a stunning musical score and superb acting. It doesn't augment Miyazaki's film in "any sort of cerebral or thematic way. But it does inject the story with fresh life, with the kind of charged intimacy that you only get in live performance."

It's tricky at first to read the subtitles while also taking in "the wonders unfolding on stage", said Sarah Crompton on What's on Stage. But soon this "captivating" show works its magic: it is so "transfixingly beautiful and so completely assured that it feels like balm" for the soul. Designer Jon Bausor's "magnificent" turning tea house set is full of life, colour and enchantment. And all the film's gods, witches and paranormal characters are faithfully recreated through a "deft and inspired mixture of puppetry" (by Toby Olié), costume and movement. 

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The music, too, is thrilling, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian: Joe Hisaishi's score brings "sweeping emotion and an epic feel".

It's all superbly done, but I wasn't sure who it's for, said Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard. "It's too sappy and fairytale-ish to be entirely for adults, too discomfiting and grotesque for some children." For me, what was missing was "human connection", said Matt Wolf in The New York Times. It looks amazing, but it "rarely grabs the heart", and the narrative gets swamped by the spectacle. "Was I emotionally transported, or spirited away? Alas not."

London Coliseum, London WC2 (020-7845 9300). Until 24 August Running time: 3hrs